Wednesday, February 08, 2012

The Big 70
We had a small 70th birthday party at our daughter Laurel's after church on Sunday. (She isn't 70, but I am.)
All of my family were there except for Evelyn's family. (She and her children were here Thursday-Saturday during her teachers convention, but they had to go home on Saturday.)

My brother Lloyd came and brought my mother! Also my sister Judy and her husband Bernie and granddaughter Taryn came. Mom is 92 and she doesn't get out a lot. Sunday she got to see all of my family except for Evelyn's family and my granddaughter Mady (who was at gymnastics) and my son Rob (who showed up after the Superbowl game). It was a nice little get-together. Taryn made me a birthday card by hand, which was really sweet!

I can't believe all of the birthday wishes! I received 20+ via Facebook and 30+ from others serving in FamilySearch Support. I realize that most of these people received pop-up reminders, but it is nice that they took a moment to think of me and send their best wishes. I also received a few phone calls.

We are doing well. My wonderful wife Judy is now serving with me at the Family History Center during my weekly shift on Thursdays. Our new series of classes starts this week with a class for beginners. Hey, I will post the schedule here for anyone on the Edmonton area who is interested.

Family History Classes

Classes will be approximately 7-8 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays,
at the Riverbend Family History Center, 14325-53 Avenue, northern east entrance.
We are available to help you with research and questions after class.

Feb 7/9 Introduction to family history for beginners: Why and How?
Feb 14/16 Introduction to New FamilySearch: What it is ... & what it isn’t!
Feb 21/23 New FamilySearch: Adding, editing, and combining
Feb 28/Mar 1 New Family Search: Reserving ordinances and printing requests
Mar 6/8 FamilySearch.org: What it is & what you can do with it – films, indexing, original document images
Mar 13/15 Commercial websites for free at the FHC
Mar 20/22 Genealogy software
Mar 27/29 none - Spring Break
Apr 3/5 Wiki and free online research courses
Apr 10/12 Cemetery research
April 17/19 Sources, citations, and notes: How to use them
April 24/26 How to write a personal history an easier way
May 2/4 Make family history more interesting for your family: Creating books, reports, and websites the easy way. Bring your ideas for family history fun!

If you would be interested in a class on one of these topics (or teaching it), please contact bill.buchanan@excite.com Try to bring some ideas to share.
Getting more from your digital camera
Getting more from your scanner
Getting more from your computer
Tablet computers – uses and limitations, ideas swapmeet
How to automatically synchronize data across multiple computers (Dropbox)